Mike’s wife has been nice enough to get him a fishing gift certificate
for Christmas for the last few years and today was “cash it in day”.

Mike phoned
me last week when the 10 day forecast called for rain, wondering what
we should do about our trip. I encouraged him to hold off on making a
decision until at least Sunday when the forecast was a bit more
accurate. Long story short, I told Mike we could either have a pretty
average day if we scheduled him for Tuesday (given the forecast for
clouds and a mild SSE wind), or roll the dice on the timing of the front
which was forecast for today (and which arrived during our trip). If
the gamble paid off, I told him it would pay off handsomely; if it
didn’t, we’d likely go home with just a handful of fish caught.

As it turned out, Mike’s willingness to take a risk paid off and we
nailed it!! We got on the water as the last of the humid, cloudy, wet
weather was clearing from W to E following a night of flooding rains in
Austin up though Bell, Milam, Hill and Limestone counties, and as the
winds began to shift from the S through the W. As they are apt to do
this time of year, the fish went on an aggressive feeding binge that
lasted from 8:45a to 10:15a.

During this time, we used ¾ oz.
TNT 180 slabs (white color) on spinning gear and boated an amazing 242
fish out of anywhere from 28-34 feet of water. Fish were found
throughout the water column from bottom up to within 4 feet of the
surface during most of this time with occasional, light surface action
visible in the heavy chop on the water.

Keith had the hot hand
today, catching all of the keeper-sized hybrid that we boated. Did I
mention he was wearing a Red Sox hat? Did I mention the Red Sox won the
World Series later this same day?

We kidded how we were going to send young Alex home “spoiled” with results that would be hard to beat for a long while to come.

TALLY = 242 FISH, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES: Start Time: 7:25a End Time: 12:15p Air Temp: 70F at trip’s start. Water Surface Temp: 71.1F Wind: Winds were S8 at trip’s start, with a full swing thru NW18 by trip’s end as a cool front hit.
Skies: 100% clouded at first light through 8:45a; then clearing with
the beginning of the wind shift that accompanied the incoming front. Notes: BA=30G; GT=50

After returning home to central Texas after my annual trek to Juarez,
Mexico, to build a home with teammates from my church, I got on the
water to do some scouting and get back in touch with fish locations and movements, bait location, and to check if any helpful migratory birds had yet come down this way.

The photo I’ve attached shows gamefish throughout the water column
after I “worked them up” by catching a few in rapid succession.

I headed over to Belton Lake as it tends to fish a bit better than
Stillhouse through around Thanksgiving time as the water begins to cool.

As I do on most of my scouting trips, I tried today simply to locate
gamefish willing to bite, catch a few to verify that they are gamefish,
that they are willing to bite, and to check on their size. I typically
shoot for catching just a few fish and then moving on instead of sitting
in one area catching all I can.

Today, that practice allowed me to identify 6 distinct areas where I felt confident that fish would continue to use.

At each location, due to the low pressure conditions, the fish were
sluggish and had to be finessed a bit to provoke the school into biting.
The first fish was always the hardest to dupe, then the others
“loosened up” and bit more willingly.

All of my fishing today was done with either a 3/8 or ¾ oz white TNT 180 slab.

With Stillhouse in definite “turnover” mode, I
decided to give it a few days to calm down and for the fish to
establish a “new normal” which typically involves seeing them trend
upstream in the reservoir and move to deeper structures in the mid-lake and upper-lake areas.

I headed to the Texas coast these past 4 days with my bride to enjoy a little down time.

We fished on the Galveston Bay complex for a full day on October 17th and for a half day on October 18th.

I fished with Captain Mark Kimbrough (409-682-4095).

The weather sure didn’t do us any favors. We had a cold front come in
overnight on Wednesday and stalled on top of the eastern half of Texas
for the next few days bringing cool, windy, and rainy conditions. The
bay is so shallow that any temperature drop immediately impacts the
fishery.

Thursday was the better of the two days; just Mark and
I fished this day. We drifted some weedy flats, fished some marsh
lakes and cuts, and targeted rocky breakwaters and oyster beds. By
day’s end we landed several redfish, black drum, flounder, and speckled
trout. All fish came on Gulp! shrimp or Vudu shrimp fished on jigheads
under a popping cork

On Friday I convinced Rebecca to come
along. Unfortunately, the winds were up high and this very much limited
our options. We did a little bait fishing so Rebecca was sure to catch
a few fish. She landed piggy perch and a dogfish for her efforts, but
the gamefish were hard to come by.

This morning I met up with Mike S. of Georgetown, TX, and Keyshawn, a young man Mike is mentoring through the “Big Brothers” program.

Keyshawn, and his “Big Brother”, Mike S.

No sugar-coating on this report … we struggled today. There is always a 2-3 week period somewhere around this time of year when the thermocline breaks down (some call it “turnover”) and things get really hit-or-miss before the fish settle into their cool season mode at mid-lake, and, unfortunately, we are now in it.

I struggled to find large concentrations of fish and, even when we did find some larger groups of fish, they were loathe to respond. This was evidenced by the fact that the majority of our fish came on downriggers today as we combed and combed and combed water to try to fool a few active fish from amongst a disinterested majority. Every time we stopped over a congregation of fish we found and marked as we downrigged, that group would give up just 1 or 2 fish (if that) and the remainder just would not “turn on”.

So, we took lemons and tried squeezing some lemonade. We did catch fish on the downriggers pretty consistently through around 9:20. At that time the sun brightened and a southerly wind picked up and some schoolie-largemouth began to feed on topwater on shad. We broke from the downrigging to work to lure these fish and did catch several largemouth this way. By now we’d landed 16 fish.

Around 10a, encouraged by the wind now blowing SSW at ~10 and the most sun breaking through that we’d seen all morning, I began searching over several deepwater areas in search of schooled white bass. We came up with nothing.

Around 11:15, we returned to where we’d experienced success earlier in the day and picked up a few more whites by downrigging, and a few more largemouth using sub-surface retrieves. We added 7 to our tally in this vicinity.

We set aside the last 45 minutes or so to introduce Keyshawn to fishing for sunfish with a pole and line. We headed to shallow cover and baited up with Gulp!. Keyshawn did well at finessing his bait into the nooks and crannies where these sunfish like to ambush from, and was rewarded for his efforts — he boated 8 sunfish (7 bluegill / 1 longear/green cross).

Mike, who recently joined the staff of the National Wild Turkey Federation, is a well-traveled and experienced fisherman, so, the conversation was most enjoyable today.

One thing is for sure — we definitely didn’t spoil young Keyshawn. He was exposed to casting artificials, downrigging, smoking bladebaits, vertical jigging slabs, and slip-floating for sunfish. He saw how we had to work for each fish we caught and realized there was a rhyme and reason to doing what we did and how we did it. Though a man of few words, Keyshawn said with a smile that he had fun today and the the casting for those buck bass busting bait on the surface was his favorite part of the day.

This morning I met father-and-son team Michael and Dakota V. at Stillhouse Marina for a half-day fishing trip in celebration of Dakota’s 12th birthday.

It was a day of “firsts” for Dakota’s fishing career!

I’ve got to start off by saying Dakota is my kind of kid. Over the summer he spent approximately 70% of his waking hours stalking the property around Frank’s Marina on Belton Lake or the banks of Nolan Creek running through the town of Belton in pursuit of anything with fins. At 12 years old, he came to the realization that his fishing was limited by his dad’s ability to get him where he “needs” to go. He came up with a proposal for his dad which went something like, “Why don’t you just drop me off at the marina when you go to work in the morning and then come pick me up at night when you’re done?”. Again, my kinda kid!! Now, add to that that he wants to become a Navy SEAL, retire from the Navy, then run a fishing guide service of his own … well, you just want to hustle for a kid like that!!

Coming into today’s trip Dakota had never fished from a boat, nor landed a largemouth bass or white bass. Most of his success had come on smallmouth bass, sunfish, carp, and catfish.

As we got going, we battled a murky, grey sky which limited the sudden brightening of the morning sky which often triggers the morning feed. So, things were a bit slow in the first hour or so, but, thanks to the scouting done yesterday, we had a handful of places where I suspected fish would be and as I worked through those places, we found fish.

While things were slow, I relied on the downriggers to comb out the more aggressive individuals from a generally non-aggressive population. As the winds calmed a bit at mid-morning and the skies brightened, the bite intensified and our downrigging results improved, and we also began to see fish pull up off bottom into a feeding posture. We switched over to a more aggressive vertical presentation with ‘blasters and TNT180’s and scored well over about a 70 minute window beginning just past the midpoint of our trip, around 10:30.

Most of the large concentrations of fish we found today were between 36-41 feet.

By 11:15 the bite was over and although we looked elsewhere with downriggers down, we saw precious little ready to feed any longer. After finding nothing to fish for in 3 different, typically productive areas it was clear that we’d caught all we were going to catch for today.

By trip’s end Dakota had (obviously) fished from a boat, AND he caught his first white bass, AND he boated the only largemouth to come over the side (although his dad hooked and lost one right at boatside as we were beginning our trip). In all, we boated 36 fish and had a good time mixing it up with the 3 techniques we employed to do it. Mission accomplished!

This morning I headed out with the intention of finding fish away from the lower basin of Stillhouse. The fish have been in here all summer, but as the thermocline breaks down, they begin moving slowly upstream. Today we tried to find out if they’ve begun moving, and if so, how far.

Scouting success!

I was accompanied this morning by my neighbor and former Port Mansfield guide Bruce Shuler.

As has been the case over the last two weeks, the early morning was very slow (and was also accompanied by light winds), the best bite happened at mid-morning, and, by around 11a, things died pretty quickly.

In order to try to locate fish in as many places as we could while the strong bite was going on, we would find fish on sonar, fish to verify they were there and biting, catch just a few, mark them so I could return, then move on and repeat the process.

In this way I was able to find fish and catch them in 4 areas, and find fish which were unwilling to strike in two others.

The upstream movement has not been all that great yet, but movement towards the main river channel is quite clear.

This morning I fished with 8 year old Reagan Westbrook, accompanied by his mom, Leisa. This was the 27th “SKIFF” trip we’ve conducted this year.

Reagan caught the first fish of his life today, followed by 37 more!.

FISH ON! and not another boat in sight!.

SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service (examples: field time, gunnery, NTC, deployment, etc). These trips are funded by the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.! Please call me at 254-368-7411 to arrange for a trip for your child!

Reagan is the oldest of 3 children. His dad, First Lieutenant Justin Westbrook, is currently stationed in Afghanistan where he serves as a Military Intelligence Officer with the 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade. His mom, Leisa, who was also on active duty as an Army linguist at one time, homeschools their children, thus giving them the flexibility to participate on a weekday morning.

Reagan had never caught a fish nor been on a fishing trip prior to this morning’s experience. So, we started with the basics by targeting shallow-water sunfish while we waited on the sun’s direct rays to warm both us and the air a bit from the low of 48F we encountered pre-dawn. Armed with a pole, slip float, and maggots, we easily broke Reagan in boating 8 sunfish in a very short span of time.

As the sun broke the horizon, Reagan was ready to take on the big ones! We had all 6,400 acres of Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir to ourselves (literally, thanks to the government shutdown of all Corps of Engineer access points). We began the hunt for fish by targeting suspended white bass down around 29-31 feet over a 35-41 foot bottom. Reagan lost his first fish, caught his second fish, then was treated to landing a “triple” – 3 fish caught at one time on the same rod, thanks to the 3-lure umbrella rig we’d geared up with. We wound up with 9 fish in this locale.

As the action picked up, we moved on to a breakline in even deeper water and found fish in a feeding posture there. We broke out the spinning rods prepared for “smoking” and used ‘blasters to bring in 14 fish in short order from off of one small area. Over this 50 minute period, we often both had fish on at the same time, so, I’d wait until Reagan landed one then handed my hooked fish to him to “keep his string stretched”.

After this peak of activity passed, we checked 2 areas without result and ended up returning to this same area and combing out the few still-active fish among the disinterested majority by using downriggers. We put a final 7 fish in the boat (5 singles and a double) and called it a day.

I really enjoy weekday trips as the aesthetics are much more abundant. Today we witnessed flocks of cormorants flying, a tern, an osprey, a flock of coots, migrating Monarch butterflies, parachuting (ballooning) spiders, and more. Such things are typically in short supply on busy weekends.

Thank you, SKIFF contributors, for your gifts which allow for days like this to come together.

This morning I fished with brothers David (age 12) and James (age 6) McNicol from the Kouma Village housing area on Fort Hood on the 27th SKIFF trip of 2013.

12 year old David liked both downrigging and vertical jigging with spinning gear.

6 year old James is evidently destined to become a wastewater engineer. He is also capable of catching nice largemouth bass.

SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service (examples: field time, gunnery, NTC, deployment, etc). These trips are funded by the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.!

The boys’ dad, Specialist (SPC) James McNicol is currently stationed in Afghanistan with the 59th Mobility Augmentation Company (MAC). SPC McNicol is a combat engineer involved in route clearing operations wherein the Army’s “Husky” vehicles are used to locate and eliminate improvised explosive devices (IED’s) thus making travel safer for all vehicles. The boys’ mom, Melanie, keeps up with 5 kids and 2 dogs as a temporarily single parent awaiting James’ return.

We got off to a less than ideal start this morning, but it underscores exactly how and why SKIFF is able to meet needs in the Fort Hood community. Mrs. McNicol was trying to make her daughter’s birthday party a special one by baking a birthday cake just for her. This is made difficult with 4 other kids under the age of 12 in the house at the end of a school week. So, she held off on getting started until all the kids were in bed. That project went until well after 1 a.m. at which time SPC McNicol called from Afghanistan. The call was most welcome, but the missed sleep was not. Long story short, we were due to launch this morning at 7:25a, but the McNichol clan did not rise until after 8am, so, we missed out on the first (and often best) 2 hours of fishing. That said, when Mrs. McNicol got the boys to me, I just asked what time the party was, and told her I’d keep the boys from under her feet until the party started. You could see the relief on her face. No boys to worry about for 4+ hours, and no need to leave and pick them back up right before party time. So, peak feeding time or not, we fished from 9:30a to around 1:15p — as long as we could and still have a timely arrival at the big birthday bash.

A cold front arrived today at around 12:30p. Typically, winds blow hard in advance of a front from the south, then from the west, then from the northwest or due north as the cold air arrives. The good fishing typically comes with the west wind. Today’s front was a bit “funky”. The air was heavy and still with just a gentle SSE breeze until the moment the front came in cranking the wind speed up to 17 mph from the NW and dropping the temperature immediately. The fish were in a negative mood right up until the windshift and then fed really hard for about the first 45 minutes of the NW blow.

We stuck to white bass fishing all day today as the boys had previous fishing experience and could use spinning gear without much coaching required. We downrigged to find fish and then “smoked” with ‘blasters to take advantage of what we found while downrigging. Today marked the first day we’ve caught fish at or below the 40 foot mark — a sign that the thermocline is nearly gone.

In all, we boated 33 white bass in the 0, 1, 2, and 3 year classes, as well as 2 just-keeper largemouth.

As I drove the boys home I had a humorous thing happen. James (remember, he’s 6) says, “Mr. Bob, do you remember the olden days?” I said, hesitantly, “Yes.” He continued, “Well I don’t know what they’re called but in the olden days didn’t people go to the bathroom in those outside things that are kind of like boxes.” I said, “Oh, you mean outhouses.” He said, “I don’t know what they are called but they kind of look like those blue things (he motioned to the Port-A-Potties now being used on the US Hwy. 190 construction project).” I informed him that I was born in 1969, well after the age of outhouses in America, but that at one time people did indeed meet nature’s call in outhouses!!

Thank you all for helping make days like this happen, fish like these be caught, and birthday cakes get made for daughters missing dads!!!

This morning I fished with a retired couple, Dickie and Sandra M., of Killeen.

Sandra and Dickie with the best of our bunch today — 43 fish caught — all white bass.

First, let me say I AM open for business despite the government shutdown of the Corps of Engineer facilities at Belton and Stillhouse. Just hours in advance of the gates closing and the barricades being placed in front of the boat ramps, I moved into a wet slip at the Stillhouse Marina and will be running all trips on Stillhouse until the shutdown is over.

Now, back to our trip – Dickie is a combat veteran of the Vietnam war and earned a Purple Heart after being shot down in the helicopter he was piloting. After retirement from the service he served as an instructor pilot at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. Sandra just retired 2 years ago as an EMT and now spends a good bit of time singing with the Central Texas Master Singers and playing bridge.

The couple does a good bit of saltwater fishing up near the Sabine Lake region on the Texas-Louisiana border. This kind of cut both ways. It was great to have people aboard who already knew how to cast, fight a fish, etc., but when it comes to pulling power, our white bass aren’t much of a match for 20-30 pound redfish. That said, they have tried fishing on their own on both Belton and Stillhouse and admitted that our catch today of 43 exceeded the total catch of their last 7-8 trips (by about 40 fish!).

Fishing was just average today thanks to the easterly component of a continued SSE wind in advance of an approaching cold front due in Saturday morning. The fishing followed a very predictable bell-shaped curve this morning starting off slow at sunrise, picking up well from 9-10:15, then tapering off to nil by 11:40 We covered the slow times by downrigging and when things picked up we went vertical using ‘blasters to target more aggressive, schooled fish.

As the water cools and the days grow shorter, the fish continue to be found deeper and deeper as the thermocline begins to dissipate. Today we picked up a few of our fish from as much as 38 feet.

Dickie and Sandra are both from the coastal part of Texas near Lake Jackson/Angleton area and know well the Surfside area where my wife and I are heading for vacation later in the year, so, it was nice to get some local inside scoops on where to go and what to do during our conversation.

We finished up today having boated 43 fish, all white bass ranging from 0-3 years. The two largemouth bass we hooked bothescaped on the jump. We also missed a few while we vertically jigged before I switched us over to mono instead of braided line. I’ve noticed before on clients who have enough fishing experience to have a built-in reflex to set the hook when a fish strikes that they miss a lot of fish while using braided line, so, to compensate, I switch such folks over to stretchier mono and that always seems to fix the problem.

This afternoon I fished an after-school trip with Jamal and Maurice Johnson. This was the 25th “SKIFF” trip I’ve conducted this year.

Jamal with one of the larger white bass we caught on umbrella rigged Pet Spoons today.

Maurice kept right up with his big brother and brought in an equal share of the catch this afternoon.

SKIFF (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) trips are provided free of charge to families whose children are separated from a parent due to that parent’s military service (examples: field time, gunnery, NTC, deployment, etc). These trips are funded by the Austin Fly Fishers and a network of supportive individuals from all over the U.S.!

Jamal, age 7, and Maurice, age 6, are the sons of Staff Sergeant Carwee Christopher Johnson III and his wife, Julia. SSG Johnson is currently on his 4th deployment and is stationed in Kuwait as a Signal Corps non-commissioned officer with the 62nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion. Julia is originally from the Bavarian region of Germany, so, the boys maternal grandparents (Oma and Opa) still live there. Evidently, Opa took Carwee on a fishing trip, resulting in the catch of exactly one carp. The boys told some big tales about this particular event, smiling the whole time. Bottom line, after that, Carwee was hooked on fishing.

Since the boys have good memories of the fishing trips they have been on with their dad, Julia thought they’d enjoy doing something they would normally do with him, while he is away. She picked the boys up at school and drove them straight to the boat ramp for today’s trip.

Our winds were from the SSE today, and that easterly component never helps the fishing out, so we picked up just a fish at a time for our first 90 minutes, catching 18. When the fish are really turned on, we’ll regularly boat doubles or triples (2 or 3 fish at a time on the 3 lures affixed to the umbrella rigs I use), and boat them consistently. When the fish get sluggish, that’ll drop to just single fish and even those singles caught with less frequency. Even though it was a bit slow, the bite was consistent, and the boys did well helping one another out. When one hooked a fish, the other reeled in the downrigger ball and vice versa.

I keep a close eye on kids to detect when their attention span is running out – usually when they begin snacking, then looking at and asking questions about all the gadgets on the boat or playing with the fish in the livewell instead of intently working the rods, then I know it’s time to change up. When Jamal and Maurice got to this point, we headed shallow to fish for sunfish. This was a big hit! Both boys had sufficient manual dexterity and coordination to do all they needed to do using the poles I have rigged for this technique. We rigged up with maggots and wore the sunfish out. We caught green sunfish, bluegill sunfish, and longear sunfish – 15 in all before the sun dropped below the western ridge near us, taking the direct sunlight off this area and stopping the bite.

We finished up the day with some sunset downrigging and had a short, but more productive, bite in the last 30 minutes, putting another 7 fish in the boat over that span of time.

We boated 37 fish in all today and returned to the ramp with 2 white bass to use for “show and tell” for mom, after which we released them.